


The Life You Left Behind

by Joel7th



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Creepy, Drug Use, M/M, Overdose, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: Klaus died. Ben started seeing his ghost.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Kudos: 45





	The Life You Left Behind

_You used to captivate me by your resonating light_

_Now, I'm bound by the life you left behind_

_Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams_

_Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me_

**_My Immortal_ (Evanescence)**

**\---**

Ben knew for certain The Horrors fancied Klaus. Had taken a liking to the weird kid whose tiny palm had pressed against Ben’s stomach in a fit of curiosity, felt the coiling shapes of the tentacles under the thin, fragile skin and had not withdrawn like being burnt. Instead, his brother had smiled and cooed as if petting a cute animal. The Horrors had liked that, animalistic as they were.

That was only the surface, though. The true reason, Ben supposed, was that Klaus, with his unique set of powers, got more intimate with death than the rest of the living humanity. Even more than Ben, their unwilling host. And The Horrors, they were death-incarnate, always gluttonous for the blood and gore they reaped from the flesh bags galore.

So, they mourned his death in their own unique horrific way, grumbling and clawing at the walls of Ben’s stomach as if trying to rip them open and forcing their way out so they could kiss his rigid body, dressed in the uniform he had so loathed and laid in the open casket, with their suckers and grieve with their slime. Klaus’s funeral was the highest form of torture for Ben not only because their dad had not wasted a chance to give them a scalding lecture on their utter failure as a superhero team. Fuck all that, Ben heard it like a mantra chanted in his mind voice as he tightly clutched his stomach and gritted his teeth through the lengthy ordeal, paying little attention to the heavy, somber atmosphere or his remaining siblings. Although The Horrors rarely laid still, they had never inflicted such excruciating pain before, and Ben exhausted all his strength and will just to stand on his own legs in the snow-covered courtyard. Soon as Sir Hargreeves’s stiff figure faded into the shadows of the hallway, he collapsed on top of the pristine snow, his core burnt out and his vision blotched, and the last thing on his mind was the feel of Luther’s arms under his knees and on his back as his super strong brother picked him up as though he weighted nothing more than a teddy bear.

Like countless times before, Ben woke up in the stark infirmary and was immediately greeted by Mom’s serene face, her perpetual loving smile etched into the curve of her rogue lips and the fine crinkles at the corners of her eyes. The only difference, he soon found out, was that he wasn’t looking at the mop of chocolate curls peeking out from Mom’s shoulders; since they were very little Klaus had had a habit of hiding behind Mom, sometimes due to shyness and sometimes to tease, which had continued even when Mom’s slender frame had long been unable to cover his tall, lanky one. Klaus had tried to remedy that by bending his knees or even kneeling on the floor, which had never failed to lift Ben’s mood with its sheer ridiculousness. Seemingly unaware of the distinct absence of her least serious son, Mom asked Ben how he was feeling and upon learning that he was in agony, she did what she had always done, meticulously programmed by Dad: she gave him a handful of painkillers which were sure to leave him all drowsy for the rest of the day. He spread his palm for the pills but did not consume them right away. Instead, he sat up from the cot and asked to retire to his room and sleep until dinner. Of course, Mom, sympathetic as ever, let him go without question.

His room was also Klaus’s room because they had been sharing a joined living space for as long as he could remember.

The writing on Klaus’s walls — his avant-garde verses — was the same when Ben pushed open the door. In fact, everything remained the same as the morning he had donned the suit and gone on that fateful mission: the half-full flask sitting proudly on the table, a deviance among the innocent-looking stuffed toys from their faraway childhood; the open sketchbook laid on his bed, pulled flushed against Ben’s so that they could curl around each other at night; and the pile of dirty laundry in the corner because someone had been a sloth and waited until he ran out of clothing to finally do his chores; all of them, lying in silence, holding their breath in waiting for the boy who would never return to them. Tears started to veil Ben’s eyes and by the time he reached the heap of unwashed clothes and picked up a black tank top, he could hardly see anything. He brought the item to his nose and inhaled deeply the mixture of stale sweat and faint floral scent from the bath gel and something he had no name for but instinctively recognized as _Klaus_ — God, he had acquainted himself with it for so long he could pick it out in a sea of smells like a bloodhound could. Inside The Horrors howled soundlessly, each meaty tentacle pounding on his innards and molding his organs like putty in a naughty child’s hand. Ben sobbed into the tank top, his tears mingling with snots further soiling the fabric.

There was a unicorn plushie on the bedside table. Ben grabbed its front legs with both hands, yanking them to opposite ends until the seam in the middle of its tummy came off. His fingers dug mercilessly into the gaping tear, pulling out the stuffing until they reached what he was seeking: a couple of baggies.

He discarded the poor gutted unicorn, emptied the baggies into his palms and counted the colorful pills.

Ben swallowed them all, together with the painkillers he had been prescribed by Mom, without a second thought. He lied down on the floor, curled up into fetal position, clutching Klaus’s tank top to his chest and burying his nose in it.

The Horrors stilled for now. Here came the end.

...

Ben had not expected to wake up to the blinding fluorescent light of the infirmary (maybe he had not expected to wake up at all!) and thus, felt a wave of disappointment crashing on his fatigued mind. He winced, lifting an arm to shield his bleary eyes and finding out immediately he couldn’t, for his right arm was attached to an IV drip while his left was secured to the bed frame with a leather belt. Probably to prevent him from yanking the IV out or pulling something more extreme. Ben smiled wanly. Who had found him, he wondered. One of his siblings who had been sent by Dad to fetch him because he had been late to dinner and Ben Hargreeves had never been late to dinner, or anything in his life really; or Mom, who had brought him food as she always did when he had one of his ‘periods’ (Klaus’s term — the jerk)? Ben soon realized that he couldn’t care less about the unfortunate one that had as his eyes swept across the tiny room and found Mom sitting in the corner, all plugged in. Recharging was her precious little sleeping time; still, Ben was sure she would spring to wakefulness should there was any anomaly in his vital signs, transmitted to her through a wireless system Dad had invented. He had half a mind to take out his IV and got up to shut her down — haven’t thought I could do that, huh, Dad? — and resumed what had been interrupted. He supposed Klaus had had more pills hidden somewhere in their room; he only needed to dig deeper. And if not, well, there was always another option.

Like a leaking faucet, it trickled into his consciousness, made hyper-aware by his heightened senses and the deafening silence of the infirmary. Ben had read from a book in Dad’s library that there had been an ancient torture method in which liquid had been dripped onto a prisoner’s forehead, gradually driving them insane. At that time he had written it off as a myth but only when he was lying immobile on the bed had the method’s harrowing effect dawned on him, for the steady, peculiar “drip, drip, drip” was acid on his frayed nerves. He craned his neck and scanned the room but his search for the source was to no avail, which was frustrating yet understandable — after all Mom wouldn’t allow leaking liquid in a tiny space filled to the brim with electronic devices, would she? Then where and what could it be? His gaze landed on Mom’s statuesque form and instantly his heart stuttered.

A mop of tousled curls peeking out from her shoulders like a naughty kid in a game of peek-a-boo was the reason for Ben’s near-stroke and the violent shiver that swept over his entire being subsequently. His muscles went rigid, beads of sweat slithered along his backbone, and the tips of his fingers trembled. His mouth was dry and there was sandpaper rubbing at his throat as he gawked at the too-familiar dark hair until his eyes burned.

Ben blinked.

The next thing he saw was that mop of curls next to his arm, where the IV was attached.

With eyes so wide they hurt and the need to breathe momentarily foregone, he watched the head rise and a face got in his line of sight.

In Ben’s mind there was a face.

He was intimate with that face. Had committed it into his memory bank.

No doubt its owner would grow up to be a heartthrob, though he would rather gnaw off The Horrors than let Klaus know. Still, he suspected his brother, the narcissistic bastard, had already seen through him, if the knowing twinkle in his jewel eyes had been any indication.

The same twinkle was present in his eye.

 _Eye_. Because Klaus had only one eye left.

His other eye was an empty socket from which blood endlessly streamed out.

Drop after drop, forming rivulets down his defined cheekbone, down his chin, onto the floor.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Ben’s heartbeat unconsciously synced with the sound.

Klaus grinned at him like he had always done, a little playful, a little deranged, with a whole lot of casual affection. But with his face like this, he looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

Maybe Ben was in a horror movie. Should he scream like the many scream queens they had watched together over the years?

Ben didn’t. He continued to stare as if mesmerized by Klaus’s single eye. Maybe he was. Maybe in the depth of this emerald pool lied a potent curse that hooked the looker and did not release until they were dragged all the way down to the muddy bottom and firmly planted there.

“I’m tremendously disappointed, Benny boy,” Klaus cooed, cocking his head and pursing his lips, glossy in the light thanks to the lip balm he had borrowed from Allison; never would she have thought it would be the last time she could lend him her stuff. “I thought I could at least give you a boo. ‘Tis All Hallows’ Eve after all.”

That sounded like something Klaus would say; in fact, not only did the wraith copy his speech, it also mimicked his voice and tone. Ben gulped dryly, unsure of how he should reply; what should you say to a macabre figment of your mind, fueled by disorientation and whatever else in the IV drip? Instead, he lifted his hand fractionally, trying to touch Klaus’s unmarred side. He didn’t flinch one bit when his fingers slipped through Klaus and he grasped a fistful of air.

So, truly his morbid imagination then?

“You aren’t scaring me,” Ben said, his voice raspy.

Klaus beamed at him, and were it not for the gore acting as stark reminder of his ghastly nature, it would be quite endearing and Ben’s mood would be elevated despite how shitty he felt at the moment. On top of the shittiness, he was also annoyed by this may-be-Klaus apparition for no reason other than vague self-hatred and lingering suicidal impulse. “What did you do, Benny?” Klaus rested a hand on top of the white sheet, beneath which lied The Horrors’ crowded nest. His palm coated in his own blood did not stain the fabric. “I was merely gone for a day and yet...”

The Horrors did not react.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Now you’re seeing me, though I suppose my face is a sight to _behold_.”

He chuckled dryly.

“It’s... alright.”

Lie, of course.

Klaus frowned with his good eye. “The fact that you hesitated means it’s not okay. It’s never as long as I remain like this. I’m gonna figure out a way to restore my pretty mug if I’m gonna stick around.”

Ben snickered, which caused his body to shudder with stabbing pain. “You’re gonna stay... with me?”

Apprehension laced with anticipation filled his guts not unlike that time he had been waiting for the result of his favorite baseball team.

“Of course,” Klaus sing-sang, right before reservation seeped in his features, his tone. So typically _Klaus_ , acting all casual and confident, cocky even, in one second and turning into a ball of anxiety and insecurity the very next. Donning always a mask of flippancy to hide the spidery cracks all over his psyche, waiting for a chance to shatter. “If you’ll have me. I’m not ready to go into the light yet. I’m... scared.”

“Then don’t go,” Ben blurred out. He would prefer to have Klaus — ghost or imagination — than having lost his closest brother to the realm that had always beckoned him. “Stay with me. Don’t leave me.”

Klaus’s toothy grin threaded a sliver of unease into Ben’s addled mind. Had he just shaken hands with Old Scratch and not knowing it?

“I won’t,” Klaus reassured him, laying his head on Ben’s tummy and tapping his manicured and painted forefinger — black, Klaus had always loved the color — on the sheet. “You will be lost without me.”

He looked up and met Ben’s eyes. “As I would be without you, notwithstanding the light or whatever Forever Land has in store. We’re screwed up like that.”

 _Codependency_ , Ben had realized for a while (after he had learned of such a word), which pretty much summed up his relationship with Klaus. It was bound to poison and destroy them both one day.

It might have already had.

“Yeah,” Ben wheezed. His eyelids were made of lead and he wanted to shut them so badly. Must be the sedative in the IV. “Will you be here when I wake?”

Ben felt silly asking that question, childish and whiny. For all he knew, it could be either a dream or a drug-induced hallucination. A _phantasm_ , another word picked up from his many books, conjured to lead the weak and vulnerable astray. Klaus had passed away, which was hard, cold truth made irreversible by this ghost lying beside him. And yet he asked, clinging to a hope as flimsy as the barrier between The Horrors and the outside world.

“You won’t get rid of me easily, Pumpkin,” Klaus promised, sitting up to kiss Ben’s cheek. “The haunting of Ben Hargreeves, how does that sound for the title of your debut book?”

“Lame.”

...

True to his words, Klaus was exactly where he had been when Ben woke, half-lidded eye framed by thick eyelashes gluing on him.

Ben felt both relieved and creeped out.

“Told ya,” Klaus said, grinning cheekily. Ben returned it with a wan smile.

Klaus lingered in the room after their siblings rushed in with glistening eyes and crushed Ben with their hugs. His feet off the ground, he hovered around them like a curious satellite, avoiding contact with their physical bodies as if spooked even though he had been liberal in his touches with Ben. He wondered if Klaus had manifested in front of any of their siblings and if he resented them; they were cogs in a machine, Dad had drilled into their heads time and time again, always working in perfect tandem, and yet they had failed him and lost him. If so, shouldn’t he be blaming Ben, who had arguably had the biggest hand in his untimely demise?

Because it should have been him with a bloody hole for his eye. Should have been him in the casket and buried six feet under.

Ben had an unfounded, powerful conviction that it had happened in another universe.

...

Ben left his childhood home with his few civilian clothes, meager savings and Klaus’s unwashed tank top as well as the rest of his drug stash.

The Horrors were rumbling in his stomach and Klaus was floating by his shoulder, whistling an unknown familiar tune.

Life was looking good for Ben Hargreeves.

_The end(?)_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote it during a mental breakdown. It was supposed to be longer but in the end I decided to end it here, leaving it ambiguous whether it’s really Klaus’s ghost or just Ben’s hallucination. It may have a sequel, depending on my mental health and inspiration. 
> 
> A little spookiness for Halloween.


End file.
